1. FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates generally to material feeding apparatus and, more particularly, is concerned with apparatus for feeding baled roughages, ear corn, small grains and other feed materials into a hammermill or similar material reducing mechanisms.
2. DESCRIPTION OF THE PRIOR ART
Many conventional hammermills and other similar material reducing mechanisms are capable of grinding feed materials which vary widely in bulkiness and other characteristics, for instance, such feed materials as baled roughages, ear corn and small grains. Several different feeding arrangements have been devised to feed some or all of such diverse kinds of feed material into the hammermill. U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,039,505, 3,062,461 and 3,771,733 represent some of the prior art feeding arrangements.
A prior art feeding arrangement which I designed and developed for feeding all of such diverse kinds of feed materials into a hammermill included an elongated trough rigidly affixed at one end to the housing of the hammermill across a lower portion of an opening defined in the housing and a pair of augers mounted within the trough to counterrotate with respect to each other for feeding such materials along the trough and through the housing opening. Also, a metal door was mounted across the trough adjacent the housing opening to normally extend generally vertically and close the housing opening above the pair of augers and thereby prevent expulsion of material from the hammermill. Further, the door could be pivotally pushed rearwardly and upwardly by a roughage bale when the same engaged the front side of the door as it was being fed along the trough, such rearward and upward pivoting of the door allowing passage of the bale thereunder and through the housing opening. The door was generally similar in structure and function to that shown in my aforementioned U.S. Pat. No. 3,039,505.
One disadvantage of my prior art arrangement resided in the pivotal door utilized for closing the hammermill housing opening. Some of the material being ground or reduced by the hammermill rotor is propelled therefrom against the rear side of the door and became compressed and adhered thereon an/or on the upper interior portion of the housing or trough adjacent to where the door is mounted each time a bale pushed the door upwardly toward such upper interior housing or trough portion. Eventually, enough material accumulated in such areas to prevent the door from pivoting upwardly sufficiently to allow passage of subsequent bales.
Another disadvantage of my prior art feeding arrangement resided in the rigid mounting relationship of the trough to the hammermill housing. Such mounting relationship restricted the trough to one feeding position with respect to the hammermill housing and also restricted the maneuverability of the machine to which the hammermill was mounted.